eyes closed to avoid the glare of the tropical sun; soon he was asleep. He dreamed that he was back at Idlewild, with Mr. Stannart’s voice repeating:

“Guard this letter as you would your life! Guard this letter....”

In the dream, invisible fingers seemed to be plucking the precious envelope, drawing it up and out of Biff’s pocket. With a sudden start, Biff awoke and shot his own hand to his pocket, where it met the crinkle of paper.

The dream had been realistic in one respect. As he dozed, Biff must have kept slumping down into his seat, causing the envelope to work upward every time he hunched his shoulders. A few inches more and it would have fallen from his pocket.

Or was that the answer? What if those phantom fingers had been real instead of mere figments of a dream!

As he thrust the envelope far down into his inside pocket and buttoned his coat for safer keeping, Biff Brewster shot a suspicious glance toward his companion of the plane trip, the smooth-spoken man who called himself Nicholas Serbot.

CHAPTER II The Clutching Hand

CHAPTER II

Biff was wide awake now, the drone of the plane growing louder in his ears. With it, his suspicions of Serbot faded. The smiling man was leaning back in his seat, his own eyes closed as if in sleep. His hands were folded loosely across his stomach.

For the first time, Biff saw why Serbot wore that constant smile. The left side of his mouth was curled to match the right, which was drawn upward by a scar that began at the corner of his lips and became increasingly jagged until it ended beside his right eyebrow.

Before, the large rims and green tint of the sun glasses had helped to hide the scar; but Serbot had removed them before he went to sleep. Now, as Biff studied him, Serbot opened his eyes slowly and gave Biff a sleepy glance. Realizing that Biff had observed the scar, Serbot raised his right hand and traced it lightly with his forefinger.

“A decoration I received during World War Two,” he commented, “while I was working with the French Underground. A Nazi spy tried to give me this—” Graphically, Serbot swept his hand across his throat—“but I managed to save my neck. I received this instead.”

Serbot clenched his left fist as though it contained a weapon. He grabbed his left wrist with 

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